In this article, you’ll learn how to set up omnichannel routing with unified agent status and manage your settings.
It contains the following sections, representing the recommended order of configuration steps:
Turning on omnichannel routing
Before you can configure any other aspect of the feature, you must turn on omnichannel routing. This involves defining an auto-routing tag and creating a trigger that assigns the auto-routing tag to email-generated tickets that you want to route. The tag isn’t required for messages or calls because they are automatically routed to an available agent.
To turn on omnichannel routing
- In Admin Center, click
Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Omnichannel routing > Routing configuration.
- On the Manage settings page, select Turn on omnichannel routing.
- Under Auto-routing tag, enter a unique name for your auto-routing tag, then click Copy to copy it to your clipboard.
- Next, click the trigger link and create at least one Support trigger that adds the auto-routing tag to tickets you want to route. See Requirements for the routing triggers.
Note: You may want to deactivate the trigger until you've finished configuring settings related to omnichannel routing, such as capacity rules, the routing configuration, and unified agent statuses. If the trigger is active, as soon as tickets that meet the trigger conditions are received or updated, they're routed to agents.
- When you are done, close the triggers tab and then, on the Manage settings page, click Save.
Now, any tickets with the auto-routing tag will be automatically assigned to the group you selected and also be set to the priority you selected.
- Review and adjust your routing configuration, capacity rules, and unified agent statuses as needed.
If you need to turn off omnichannel routing, see Disabling omnichannel routing.
Requirements for the routing trigger
Before a ticket can be assigned to an agent, it must be assigned to the appropriate group. Additionally, email tickets must also have the routing tag. You can manually assign the group and add the routing tag, but triggers provide an automated way to accomplish this.
- Conditions that define the Support tickets you want to route, such as a channel or tag. See Building trigger condition statements.
- Actions to define the routing. The following actions are required:
- Assign a group
- Assign a priority
- Add the autorouting tag (email tickets only)
Examples of adding the routing tag and groups
- You want email tickets that come in from the “Very important bank” organization to be assigned the routing tag and assigned to the “VIP” group:
- Create a trigger with the condition Organization > is > Very important bank.
- Add an action Add tags > (_your routing tag name_).
- Add an action Group > VIP.
- You want messaging tickets from a requester named “Celia Jones” to be assigned to the “Human Resources” group:
- Create a trigger with the condition Requester > is > Celia Jones.
- Add an action Group > Human Resources.
Setting up a routing configuration
Now that you’ve turned on omnichannel routing and set your routing tag, you need to configure how it distributes the messages. An initial, native routing configuration is supplied with omnichannel routing, but you can edit this to suite your needs.
To set up a routing configuration
- In Admin Center, click
Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Omnichannel routing > Routing configuration.
- On the Routing Configuration page, click Edit next to the Initial routing configuration.
- On the Initial routing configuration page, you can see the name and description for the routing configuration. On Professional and Enterprise plans, you can also configure the following values:
- Turn on messaging reassignment timing: This reassigns work to a different team member if it isn’t addressed in the time you specify (Professional and Enterprise only).
- Messaging timing (seconds): If messaging reassignment timing is enabled, specifies the time in seconds before work is reassigned to another agent. The timing is 30 seconds on Professional plans, and customizable on Enterprise plans.
- When you are finished, click Save.
Considering capacity rules and unified agent statuses
After you enable omnichannel routing, you need to define capacity rules to balance the assigned work between agents. There is one native capacity rule that is enabled by default, but you can define alternative or additional rules that better meet your unique needs.
You should also review your unified agent statuses. When you enable omnichannel routing, default agent statuses are automatically available for agents to use across channels. The default statuses can't be edited, but it's important to understand how they're configured. On Professional and Enterprise plans, you can also create custom unified statuses for agents to use across channels. Additionally, admins on all plans can configure an idle timeout for agents, which automatically changes their status to away or offline after a specified duration of inactivity.
Activate the omnichannel routing triggers
If you deactivated the routing trigger(s) you created when enabling the feature initially, make sure you re-activate the trigger(s) when you're finished configuring your omnichannel routing settings.
When the trigger is active, any tickets with the auto-routing tag will be automatically assigned to the group and priority you defined in the trigger actions.
26 Comments
Is it possible to create different rules that target different brands? (We don't want agent cross over between the tickets we route)
Ever since turning on omnichannel routing our agents are no longer being offered messaging coversations with the accept button, and they must go assign them to themselves in the view we have for them. Any tips on get this configured properly?
Daniela Healy
Yes, you can create different rules to target different brands. You just need to add a trigger condition like "Brand-Is-*name of brand*" and associate it with the tag for your routing.
Landry Norman
Have you set up a trigger to automatically add a tag to your new tickets? That happened in my test account but when I created a trigger to add a tag for specific brand tickets, it routed successfully without needing to manually assign the ticket to me.
I would recommend checking your older tickets to see if there's a tag that's associated with the omnichannel routing. If the tag you set is not there, then that's most probably the reason.
I'm testing this out in my sandbox instance now and the tag, group and priority are correctly being set by the trigger but a ticket coming in via text is not getting assigned to an agent. It seems to be working fine for email and messaging but for some reason text isn't getting assigned out.
I'm a little confused by this. It seems you are tailoring this routing for specific tags related to specific customers, which isn't practical for many other customers.
What I need to understand is how to use this in a proper round-robin fashion.
If I set a trigger with my tag (let's call it "new ticket"), that trigger will only assign to one group; what about when that group meets its capacity? what about when I have agents in other groups available to take open tickets? How does this routing method work if you need to auto-assign between groups?
Hi, I can't try this function. I have no "Omnichannel routing" in my objects and rules-side bar. Please help.
Hi Emma,
Is messaging enabled in your account? If not, kindly enable Messaging. To enable Messaging, you may check this article: Getting started with Messaging. Once Messaging is enabled, Omnichannel routing will already be available on your end.
I want to use omnichannel routing for a certain group in ZD instance. However, we have people in that group who need to be able to view tickets in that group, but I don't want them to be able to receive tickets as part of the routing - is there a way to achieve that?
For example I have a "Level 2" Group, say there are 5 agents in that group. 3 of them I want to receive tickets to serve, but the other 2 agents are only in the group so they can view those tickets if they need to. Those 2 agents can't have access to all ZD tickets though, hence they are in a group.
Hi, how come I do not see this option from our instance
Hi Riah Lao,
In order to use Omnichannel, it is a must to switch On Agent Workspace and Messaging before the Omnichannel Routing option would appear on yr Admin options. I was facing a noobs moment too earlier.
Hope this help cheers!
Hello,
I am interested in using the omnichannel routing feature for capacity and agent status, but we have no intention to use messaging/talk in our agent workspace. I currently use the Classic Web widget to suggest help articles, but I don't want it to create chats for my agents to answer. If I turn on Messaging so I can use the Routing Feature, will I have to allow the web widget to create conversations that my agents have to action, or can I continue to use the Web Widget as we are currently?
thanks,
Is it possible to combine omnichannel routing with skill based routing?
I am also confused, what's the difference between using groups or using skills?
Skills are not currently considered by the omnichannel routing engine, but that's something we intend to add in the future. For more information on how omnichannel routing works, see About omnichannel routing with unified agent status
Thank you @... I guess my question is, if I have skill based routing set up how would it interact with omnichannel routing? Would I be able to keep both or would I need to choose between one or the other?
I'm still learning about the different routing options. I still have the question about what's the difference between using groups or skills, is there a benefit for one or the other?
Hello, I'm really interested in this new feature.
I'd like to know if I'm going to be able to track status time for each agent.
We need to have KPI with number of calls and chats attended but also the time each agent has been in each status.
The link "Disabling Omnichannel" appears to be broken.
Hello, how can I see all my agent's status at once? As in, check to see how is Online Status and Away staus?
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/related/click?data=BAh7CjobZGVzdGluYXRpb25fYXJ0aWNsZV9pZGwrCBpcxJUCBDoYcmVmZXJyZXJfYXJ0aWNsZV9pZGwrCBq2J0pkBDoLbG9jYWxlSSIKZW4tdXMGOgZFVDoIdXJsSSJaL2hjL2VuLXVzL2FydGljbGVzLzQ0MDkxNDkxMTk1MTQtQWJvdXQtb21uaWNoYW5uZWwtcm91dGluZy13aXRoLXVuaWZpZWQtYWdlbnQtc3RhdHVzLQY7CFQ6CXJhbmtpBg%3D%3D--aff7e666d12e7a03bba6d56ffa6d6887bc7dad94
I'm attempting to turn on omnichannel routing. I have everything set up according to the guides:
- All brands are on messaging
- Agent workspace activated
- Trigger set up for email tickets
When I go to turn on omnichannel routing, I get a generic "invalid settings" error. I can't expand it to see any specific details. I've reached out to support and they said to clear my cache which did not help at all.
Anyone else experience this??
Thank you for raising this. Apologies for the inconvenience this has caused you. I'll work on your ticket and respond to you to help resolve the issue. Thank you for your patience.
I don't see Omnichannel routing under Objects and rules as the article states- is there a reason for that?
Hi Stella,
we had the same issue when we changed the plan. Check if Agent Workspace and Messaging is activated.
Thanks Vio H.
So this doesn't work if you only use Chat?
Correct. Your account must meet the following requirements to use omnichannel routing:
Hope this clarifies!
Thanks,
Christine
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